Kaboom festival tackles big topics

June 16, 2013

HEDGESVILLE - Big ideas were discussed Saturday beneath the trees at Rainbow Bill's during the 3rd annual Stop the Kaboom Music and Arts Festival - a gathering dedicated to raising awareness of mountain top removal and hydraulic fracturing.

In its third year, Stop the Kaboom began as Laura Steepleton's attempt to connect those in the Eastern Panhandle with the issues of other parts of West Virginia that see direct results of resource extraction. As part of Saturday's events, Kris O'Brien, a member of Morgan County Frack Ban, sat with other activists and spoke about the possibility of fracking - a method by which to extract natural gas - coming to the area.

When someone sells their mineral rights to an oil or gas company, they no longer own what is under the surface of their land, O'Brien said. She spoke of her brother-in-law, who lives in Doddridge County, and his struggle in making attempts to fight the fracking taking place beneath his property.

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Journal photo by Rachel Molenda

Activists, musicians and artists gathered Saturday at the third annual Stop the Kaboom Music and Arts Festival, which was held in Morgan County. The gathering is dedicated to raising awareness of mountain top removal and hydraulic fracturing.

"Most of the people in his part of northern Doddridge County don't own their mineral rights," O'Brien said. "Gas companies bought them years ago from people who didn't think anything of it."

Morgan County is unique in that many people have retained their mineral rights thus far, Steepleton said. Frack Ban has been reaching out to people in the county to make them aware of what this means regarding the natural gas industry, Steepleton said.

"You have the opportunity here to say, 'No, I'm not going to sign that lease,'" Steepleton said. "That's huge, because unless they can get enough conjoined property, they can't put a giant drill rig up."

Brenda Hutchinson, a former Morgan County commissioner, formed a Marcellus Shale committee in order to understand the implications of fracking, both positive and negative. The committee has heard from several speakers and taken trips to places, such as Wetzel County, to see fracking and its effects firsthand.

"The research that we did, we discovered that a lot of oil and gas leases had been renewed in Morgan County, which tells us that the oil and gas companies are at the very least keeping their fingers in the county," Hutchinson said. "If it does become viable to do gas here in this county, they have the mineral and oil lease available to do so."

Allowing people to understand what mineral rights are and how to retain them, as well as what happens if one chooses to sell them, is important, Hutchinson said. Despite that, she added, the potential for a large financial reward due to sale can be tempting.

"There are people who have been made instant millionaires by leasing their property," Hutchinson said. "Even if people are aware of the dangers, it's difficult to walk away from money like that."

Members of Radical Action for Mountain Peoples' Survival, or RAMPS, also spoke Saturday. The organization calls itself a "non-violent direct action campaign," that works in the southern part of West Virginia to end mountain-top removal - one means of extracting coal.

RAMPS works alongside communities whose members may not be able to overtly take action against coal companies for fear of retribution. RAMPS members will often physically insert themselves in these conflicts, by way of sit-ins or tree-sits, in order to keep energy corporations from carrying out their tasks, according to member Mathew Louis-Rosenberger.

"It helps shine a light and tell the story of the struggle that's on the ground," Louis-Rosenberger said. "We do our part to amplify those voices and sort of be that bleeding edge that's out there taking risks that it's sort of hard for people that live there to take.

"One of the reasons why we're able to come in and take these, kind of, higher profile, riskier actions, is because the coal industry doesn't have anything to hold over our heads," Louis-Rosenberger said.

The Stop the Kaboom Music and Arts Festival will continue today with speakers activist Diedre Lally and Green Party vice presidential candidate Cheri Honkala beginning at 9:30 a.m. Music will last late into the evening. Day passes are $20. Profits will benefit Morgan County Frack Ban and RAMPS.

Rainbow Bill's is located just off W.Va. 9 W between Hedgesville and Berkeley Springs. For directions and to learn more, visit www.stopthekaboom.com.